


Chartreuse Yellow

by fallen_woman



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-06
Updated: 2012-02-06
Packaged: 2017-10-30 17:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/334010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallen_woman/pseuds/fallen_woman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gillian, in sullied gold. S2 Spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chartreuse Yellow

**Author's Note:**

> Chartreuse Yellow, or Gillian Darmody Wears a Lot of Yellow with Green/Bronze Undertones in Pivotal Scenes, Such as Her First Fully-Clothed Appearance with Nucky, the Inquest After Angela's Death, and Her Near-Strangulation By Her Most-Loved Person

At the party, Mr. Kaestner handed her a crystal glass with a teaspoon of something amber-colored. Gillian cupped the heavy glass with both hands so she won't break it, watching the deep yellow slide across the bottom. 

"It's a liqueur from France," he said, and she thought immediately of postcards (how silly, for a girl to think of postcards) of ladies with parasols, strolling gently with calligraphy hair and tiny dogs at their feet. She tilted the glass and swallowed the teaspoon, and it was brightly bitter like all the other drinks, but a little more fragrant. She imagined that she was drinking perfume, which seemed a lady-like thing to do.

"May I have some more?" she said, dabbing at the corners of her mouth to make sure she hadn't spilled. She could see the back of Mr. Thompson across the room, and she could tell that he was telling a joke, and she wondered what was in his glass.

Mr. Kaestner smiled as he leaned in. "You may, after an interval. We wouldn't want you to get sick." 

\----------------

She let Jimmy pick the flowers for the dining table. Something cheery in a bowl, something that wouldn't raise suspicion or jealousy in a gentleman caller (because there were other ways).

Her boy frowned among the bouquets, brushing his hands over the petals when the shopkeeper wasn't looking. After 15 minutes at the stall, he walked back with a clutch of the biggest daffodils that Gillian had ever seen. 

"Are daffodils your favorite, mommy?"

"Yes, they are," she said. 

"I thought you said roses were your favorite." He looked so beautiful, with his long yellow hair curling against his white collar and the flowers flushed gold in his little hands.

"People can have many favorites, baby." Gillian took the bundled daffodils from him, six total, and breathed in deeply, just once. "But we can't buy these."

"Why not?" he said, face fit to sulk. "These are the prettiest."

She bent to him and fixed his collar with her free hand. "You want the ones with a tinge of green, darling. So you can keep them longer."

\-----------------

Even while pregnant, Angela kept the thin, fragile shape of her face. Like she belonged in a locket or a postcard. 

Today, Angela was paint-spattered. Gillian peeled off her grey gloves at the doorway and brisked in. "Do you have any female relations looking after you? Any neighbors?" 

"I'm fine," Angela said, crossing her arms high, so they didn't touch her stomach, and if the girl weren't so much of nothing Gillian would have suspected a tone in her voice.

"Nevertheless," Gillian said. "It's good to have company, isn't it?" She spotted a small canvas in the cramped living room, next to a rack of drying woollens. "Your newest?"

Angela pulled her robe tighter against her and walked to Gillian's side. "You could charitably call it a landscape." The painting--half-finished, if that--was a desert of some sort, with abashed trees and bluish scrub dotting long snarls of sand. "I meant for a purer yellow, or an orange, maybe, but the paints that I have left-- it looks sickly. Like something rotting." For the first time in Gillian's presence, Angela rested her palm against her belly, and Gillian had to quietly praise the choreography.

"You know, Jimmy wrote a poem before he left for school." Gillian pressed a thumb to a blank corner of the canvas, as if she could feel heat radiating from the brushstrokes. "It was called 'Shadowed Gold.'"

"I didn't know he wrote." Angela stepped back to the couch and sat. Gillian stayed standing, one hand draped across the top of the easel.

"He's wonderfully sentimental, Jimmy. He probably considered you the real artist and was too shy to tell you."

"Mrs. Darmody, I don't know what Jimmy considered me as. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to leave for work--"

"I'd like to buy this painting from you," Gillian said, before she thought it. "When you complete it. Myself being unschooled in art, I trust you to set the price." 

The girl was too naked in her surprise. "That's very generous of you."

"Well." Gillian snapped on her gloves. She had rehearsal, in an hour. "In any case, I'll see myself out." 

(Years later, Gillian realized that she misspoke. The title of the poem, long lost, had been "Shattered Gold.")


End file.
